Abigail Breslin is like any other teen fan of vampire flicks

Dana Barbuto

Saturday

Feb 26, 2011 at 12:01 AMFeb 26, 2011 at 11:44 PM

She might be an Oscar-nominated actress and a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but Abigail Breslin loves the teen vampire flicks “Twilight” as much an any other 14-year-old girl.

She might be an Oscar-nominated actress and a voting member of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, but Abigail Breslin loves the teen vampire flicks “Twilight” as much an any other 14-year-old girl.

She’s got a screen crush on one of the vampire hotties, but won’t divulge if she swears allegiance to Team Edward (Robert Pattinson) or Team Jacob (Taylor Lautner).

“I’m afraid to say. I’ll get attacked,” Breslin said, laughing. “I think right now that I’ll just say I’m Team Switzerland. I don’t want girls to kill me.”

Like other “twi-hards,” Breslin is anxious for the first installment of the two-part franchise finale, “Breaking Dawn,” due in November.

About the wait, she sighs heavily, “it’s too long.”

What’s more imminent, however, is Friday’s release of Breslin’s next film, “Rango.” She was recently in Boston to promote the animated flick, which co-stars Johnny Depp and Isla Fisher. In it, Depp voices a screwball lizard who desires to be a swashbuckling hero. By chance, the lizard, Rango, lands in a tiny western town called Dirt that’s inhabited by desert critters like Breslin’s precocious pig-tailed mouse named Priscilla. The town is on the verge of drying up because of a mysterious drought. Rango attempts to save the day.

Director Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean”) required Breslin and the other actors to sketch out scenes at a sound stage, rather than doing the voice work separately at recording studios. Breslin was cool with that.

“It was one of the most fun times I’ve ever had. It was so crazy,” Breslin said about shooting the film. “There was an actual gun on set and we all had to to wear ear plugs and duck down ... We were all together on a sound stage and filmed it like a play. It was better because you got to work off the other actors and it was a lot of fun.”

Turning 15 on April 14, Breslin – who is named after Abigail Adams – is already a veteran of the stage and screen. She started doing television commercials at age 3 and then landed the M. Night Shyamalan-directed “Signs” at age 5.

“I was really lucky and got to do more films,” Breslin said. Her resume includes “Nim’s Island,” “Definitely, Maybe,” “My Sister’s Keeper,” “Zombieland” and “Kit Kittredge: An American Girl.”

Breslin earned an Academy Award Best Supporting Actress nomination for her role as Olive, a plump and spunky tween beauty pageant contest in 2006’s “Little Miss Sunshine.” She lost to Jennifer Hudson, who won for “Dreamgirls”

Last March Breslin ditched her usual moxie to play a more heroic young girl, Hellen Keller in the Broadway revival of William Gibson’s “The Miracle Worker.”

“It’s very, very grueling work,” Breslin said of stage acting. “It was a really great experience. Helen Keller is a character that I’ve always wanted to play. She’s one of my heroes. So to actually get to play her was really exciting and then to do it on Broadway, since I’m from New York, it’s such an iconic New York thing to do. It was very exciting that I got that opportunity to do it.”

Her next film is Garry Marshall’s “Valentine’s Day” spin-off, “New Year’s Eve,” which, like the first is another star-studded romantic comedy.

In the meantime, Breslin said she enjoys just being a normal teenager who hangs out with friends, listens to Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Taylor Swift.

Her favorite subject in school?

“Summer vacation,” answered her mother and manager, Kim Breslin, sitting in a chair in the suite at the Eliot Hotel in Boston. “Yeah, exactly,” Abigail said, adding she loves the television shows “Glee” and “Vampire Diaries.”

And, speaking of bloodsuckers, Breslin said that while it was “cool” to work with Johnny Depp, she was “extremely excited” to find out Gil Birmingham – Jacob’s dad in the “Twilight” movies – was also in “Rango.”

“I was texting all my friends that I met him and I got my cousin an autograph. I am obsessed with ‘Twilight’ and so is she.”

Dana Barbuto may be reached at dbarbuto@ledger.com.

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